Remember me.. 💀🕯🌼

 Week 21

Feliz Día de Muertos y HAPPY HALLOWEEN a todos 🎃🦴 Hope everyone enjoyed their festivities this week, I know I sure did. Honestly, this week was pretty chafa when it comes to missionary work because everyone was super busy building ofrendas and going to muerteadas, but we had some time to celebrate ourselves and it was pretty fun:

- flowers! They are a huge part of the traditions here. All week long there were people selling flowers on the side of the road, and people buying huge amounts and carrying them all over. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a big flower girl, so I had to get in on the action. We only bought a small bunch of flowers, but as we continued throughout the day the people we visited saw we had them and they gifted us more of their own. By the time we got back to the house, we ended up with wayyyy more flowers than we had space for, but it was a win in my book 🌼

- built an ofrenda with said flowers for my companion hermana jimenez who goes home in 2 weeks and dying in the mission 🫡

- watched Cocó with some youth in the ward and didn't stop singing "recuerdame" for days after (it's way better in spanish tbh) 

- carved pumpkins with the zone: carved the face of my LZ and it's hard to spot the difference 

- ate a TON of pan de muertos and mmmmmm it is so delightful 🍞

- went to a muerteada 🪅 not really but passed by a big one as we walked home and it was kinda crazy. A muerteada is how most of the people celebrate here. It’s basically just a bunch of people in costumes walking/dancing around the city all night with a marching band. Super lit

- not related to the holiday but we pass this puppy that lives next to our house everyday and this week we named him níspero. He gets so excited and runs to the gate everytime we pass. Wish everyone reacted that way to the restored gospel 😔

Also this week we had zone Conference! Super awesome and definitely strengthened my testimony of the revelation the president recieves because it was just was I needed to hear. Shoutout Prez Paz ✌️

Also got to go to the temple with Carlos for his first time and see Hermana Tesén my trainor! Lowkey was a stressful day but the blessings of the temple are so real and it was awesome to be there with Carlos 👊🏽

Scripture I loved this week was D&C 31:3:

"Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation."

Honestly with a companion who goes home in 2 weeks is been a lot harder for me to not think of all the things I am missing at home, and just how long I still have before I return to my family. But this scripture really brought peace to me as I realized once again just how special it is to be a missionary. I have this time of my life to declare glad tidings of great joy, just like the angels at Jesus's birth. There is nothing better I could be doing, and so I have been lifting my heart up a lot more. 

Hope you all have a miracle-filled week, I know I will 👊🏽

- Hermana Stephenson